Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Less than two months since the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force issued new guidelines recommending against routine mammograms for women in their forties, a second breast cancer scandal involving a U.S. government panel of experts has come to light which has implications for healthcare reform.

An April 2009 study by Jessica Dolle et al. of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center examining the relationship between oral contraceptives (OCs) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in women under age 45 contained an admission from U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) researcher Louise Brinton and her colleagues (including Janet Daling) that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%. [1]

Additionally, Dolle's team showed that women who start OCs before age 18 multiply their risk of TNBC by 3.7 times and recent users of OCs within the last one to five years multiply their risk by 4.2 times. TNBC is an aggressive form of breast cancer associated with high mortality.

Given the push by feminists for more contraception earlier, I don't really expect to see any lefty bloggers (*cough* Amanda Marcotte *cough*) changing their minds about marketing The Pill to your 15-year-old. But they should, considering the risks.

Recent Comments

Endorsements! (Idea Stolen from Dana)

"She’s that sad creature called the sister punisher/colluder---a woman who hopes that if she hates women even more than the men in her life, she gets to be “better” than other women. A fool, in other words, unaware that the sexist men she loves so much think she’s a joke." -- Amanda Marcotte

"You really are one of the biggest pricks I've encountered on the web" -- Jeromy Brown

"You’re a cartoon caricature of the Limbaugh ditto-head" --Mike G

"You are a sadist, a fool, *and* a liar" -- Phoenicians in the Time of Romans

"Yours is the mark of an absolutist who is never wrong, always right" -- Perry